Chatter Creek Cottage: The Arts & Craft Movement

I am totally inspired to create my next novel sitting at this beautiful new edition to our living room – our Arts & Crafts Mission desk. Above the desk is a painting by Chandler, which you’ve seen before but I’d say the painting has found its home.. There is something so absolutely, intriguing about Chandler’s work, especially the night paintings. The light and the moon are so compelling. The lamp on the desk is a Mica, one of three. Mica shades are so soothing and lovely. I’d been admiring them for years and now I’ve finally lit my living room with them.

Anyway, back to the desk. I am in love with history, particularly the 1920s and 30s but also the 1800s. One of my novels went back to the 1500s and then jumped through time. Doing the research for it was one of the best years of my life. Time holds a compelling fascination for me, not because it’s gone but because it lingers. It throws shadows all over the place, as I said last week in my blog, the whispers of time are in every old photograph, every old piece of furniture and all the words written in books that are read and reread forever.

During this period, the Arts & Crafts movement provided beautiful objects that would enhance the lives of ordinary people and provide real craftsmen work. Art, music, furniture from this period in our history definitely enhances my life. It’s not that I don’t live in today’s world but I usually end my day with Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter in my old farmhouse under the glow of my mica lamps and in the shadow of an eclectic history of Victorian, modern and mission. Do I hear the whispers of time rustling through my house like the leaves that sweep through my back yard? Most assuredly I do. What do the whispers of time say, you might wonder. Just come to my living room and listen.

Vera Jane Cook

Riveting, Emotional, Unexpectedly Funny Award Winning Fiction

http://www.verajanecook.com

Author of Pleasant Day, Where the Wildflowers Grow, Dancing Backward in Paradise, The Story of Sassy Sweetwater, Lies a River Deep, Marybeth, Hollister & Jane, Pharaoh’s Star, Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem.